Tibco unveils update to Tibbr enterprise social networking tool

Network firm Tibco has unveiled several updates to its social networking tool for business customers as it seeks to capitalise on the growing demand for communications platforms that emulate sites like Facebook.

Chief among the new additions to the Tibbr tool unveiled in January is a full unified communication offering called TibCast that enables staff to start voice and video calls directly from the software.

Ram Menon, Tibco's executive vice president, told V3.co.uk that Tibbr customers had been calling for the ability to instantly start calls as video communication grows in demand.

"Staff using the tool want to be able to carry out ad-hoc collaboration whenever they want to check details with colleagues quickly and easily, so we've added this to the platform," he said.

"The system can switch between video and desktop view so participants can see documents on a user's computer. It will also automatically start recording any calls and save them in the database so colleagues can see what was discussed later."

Tibbr has also been overhauled to allow expenses and holiday systems to integrate directly with the software to increase productivity, Menon explained.

"Not only do you get notifications that a payment is waiting to be signed off, for example, but you can also approve that request from within the Tibbr tool, rather than having to log in to the separate system," he said.

"We already offer up to 160 adaptors for tools from the likes of Salesforce.com, Oracle and SAP on our other products, so this is not a new area for us, and extending this support to Tibbr was an obvious step."

Other improvements include enhanced document storage and integration with SharePoint. TibCommunities also allows IT managers to set policies for specific groups of employees to be barred or granted access to key information.

Menon revealed that Tibco has around 20 large enterprise customers using Tibbr, including casino resort MGM, explaining that awareness of the benefits and potential of such tools to increase productivity is growing.

The software update is available from August. All updates are free of charge with the exception of TibCast, which has a fee attached depending on the number of users.

Tibbr is priced around £7.50 per user per month with volume discounts available.